Ansel Elgort will never be the DJ that Jamie Foxx is

Ansel Elgort joined Late Night With Seth Meyers, where Seth congratulated Ansel on his recent Golden Globe nomination for his role in Baby Driver. Seth quickly asked Ansel to confirm that Jamie Foxx actually had two roles in the film: one on camera and the other behind-the-scenes. It turns out that in between takes, Foxx would take on the role of DJ. As much as we like to imagine him behind a set of turntables, Ansel admits Foxx would just plug his phone into his own boom box.

Anyone can do that, but what set Foxx apart was that he also played his own hype man. Ansel said, “He’s great. And he also — you know, he sort of ad-libs too. He does like the, ‘Yeah, come on!’” It’s not surprising that Foxx played some sweet jams for the crew, but it is surprising that he didn’t have his own hype man.

Learning from the best, on Ansel’s next film, he attempted to try to fill the role Foxx had on Baby Driver.

Ansel talks about how he attempted to excite the crew with his own DJ skills: “The first day we were in a bar, so I actually found like these turntables and a cord to plug my phone in. And I figured it would have a great sound system. And I thought, ‘What would be the fun song to play for the crew?’ And this is a morning shoot, so it’s a little early, about 6 a.m.”

Ansel has actually been a professional DJ, so he should be able to pick the perfect song. Maybe something easygoing to get the day started, right? Well, maybe we gave him too much credit, as he ending up choosing Haddaway’s “What Is Love?”

I don’t think things went as smoothly for Ansel as they did for Jamie. Ansel analyzed his problem, explaining, “So I plugged that in, and I didn’t quite put the sound down right away. And it blasted, and the whole crew starts looking.” Unfortunately, Ansel’s pump-up song didn’t land, and he was asked to turn off the music, which is not the first or last time someone asked for Haddaway’s, “What Is Love?” to be turned off.

Luckily after that traumatic incident, Seth was able to pass along some sage wisdom for the young actor. Regarding trying to emulate Foxx as the DJ on set, Seth said, “In general, for people like you and I, don’t ever try to do the things that Jamie Foxx is good at.”